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Description

This is one of the projects that captivated most attention from the Toky Community. It is not hard to build and to code, but the result is impressive!

Furthermore, it leaves room for improvement, and more complete projects.The code can get as complex as you want, adding more functionalities, but here we are posting the basic one. The main features are:

Lights up a Sun when the weather forecast calls for clear on your location

Electric lightening flashes and blue drops fall down when the weather forecast calls for storm on your location

Lights up a moon 15 minutes before the sunset on your location.

The cloud shows off all it’s colours when party mode is on.

The Cloud lights up a couple of stars and a quarter of the moon just at sunset.

Can turn on any of the states by calling them using Cortana voice command

Materials & Tools

Learn to code your own prototypes using the simple visual coding interface and just one finger and program it without installing software or connecting cables. Understand the principles of operating system electronics connecting in the most intuitive way, a large variety of sensors and actuators.

LED light

Also Neopixel LED, but diferent format. LED is also known as light-emitting diode is a light source that is able to adjust its luminance and color.

LED Strip

It is a strip of 30 Neopixel LED. Very common and easy to acquire on internet.

rope or string

cotton

An adhesive substance used to stick things together. You can use hot glue as well.

Pencil

A writing utensil usually consisting of graphite encased in wood. Due to its cylindrical shape, pencils can also act as a great axle or shaft.

Box Cutter

Also known as a retractable blade knife is a great tool to cut cardboard or paperboard.

Assembly Instructions

Step 1: inflate a baloon, wrap the rope and glue it. You can use hot glue or wood glue with water.

Step 2: remove the baloon

If you are using wood glue, I am afraid you will need to wait 24h to let it dry, or to use a hair dryer. After it is removed, cut out the extra ropes to have just the minimum amount of structure to sustain the cotton (see next image)

Step 3: Add the lights

The connections are:

64xLED MATRIX: OUT1

8xLED: OUT 2, 3 and 4

30xLED Strip: OUT 5

Of course, you could connect all the lights to the same Output and work on a bit more complex code, but since I don’t need to connect anything else, I went for the easy lazy solution 🙂

Step 4: Add the Tokymaker

Glue the back part of the Tokymaker to the rope.

Connect the usb and use the cable as hanger (you will need to have a USB port in the ceiling)

Step 5: Glue the cotton

First, check that the 8x LED are glued at the bottom of the cloud.

Now, cover the cloud with a very thin layer of cotton. Just to hide the inside structure and cables.

Use hot glue to do it, and be careful not to burn your hands.

Step 6: Add a second layer of cotton to create a more beautiful shape.

The next layers are aesthetics. Create voluminous shapes and glue them. Be careful, the more cotton you use, the less light will go through.